Hewlett-Packard Company today announced the most extensive portfolio of Fibre Channel information-storage products offered by any supplier to date.
The new Fibre Channel products include the EMC Symmetrix 3000 Integrated Cached Disk Arrays provided by HP, the HP High Availability Disk Array Model 30/FC, the Fibre Channel 1,062Gb/s host adapter card, the HP High Availability Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) Hub and an HP Fibre Channel-to-SCSI Multiplexer unit.
Together, these products provide the foundation for enterprise-system IT managers to begin transitioning to more flexible and manageable future computing paradigms, such as "true" network-attached storage, while overcoming the current constraints of conventional interconnect technologies.
"HP`s Fibre Channel offering is the most complete in the industry today," said Art Lane, general manager of HP`s Enterprise Storage Solutions Division. "The hub and multiplexer complement our powerful HP 9000 Enterprise Servers and storage systems, enabling customers to achieve the massive gains in performance, scalability and configuration flexibility."
HP 9000 Enterprise Servers are the first platform to support Fibre Channel interconnect with the new Symmetrix 3000 family of enterprise storage systems, introduced by EMC Corporation in January.
Operating at 100MB/s, and featuring EMC`s hallmark data-center-class performance, availability and scalability, the new Symmetrix 3000 systems can be upgraded to Fibre Channel simply by installing a Fibre Channel storage director in a customer`s existing system. Additionally, the new Symmetrix 3000 systems can support Fibre Channel, SCSI and Symmetrix Remote Data Facility (SRDF) interconnects concurrently.
HP`s High Availability Disk Array Model 30/FC is the first 100MB/s full-speed FC-AL midrange array available from a system vendor. Supporting up to 30 disk mechanisms (4.2GB or 8.8GB), it scales to 264GB in a single enclosure. Customers that have installed Model 10 or Model 20 SCSI-based systems and that require the benefits of Fibre Channel can leverage their investments in Model 10 or 20 disk drives and cache when upgrading to the Model 30/FC.
HP`s FC-AL hub has 10 ports and can be used to build mirrored fault-resilient, campuswide server and storage clusters that can be separated by up to 1.5 kilometers initially, 3 kilometers by the end of the year, and as much as 10 kilometers thereafter.
Additionally, each Fibre Channel interface enables a four-fold increase in storage connectivity over SCSI and Ultra SCSI interconnect technologies. As a result, as much as 50TB of storage capacity can be configured with a single high-end HP 9000 Enterprise Server utilizing a pair of hubs. HP`s Fibre Channel-to-SCSI multiplexer is another key component of HP`s complete Fibre Channel solutions.
Enabling two Fibre Channel host connections and four SCSI device connections, the multiplexer allows customers to integrate their SCSI-based tape libraries into their Fibre Channel networks. It is supported with HP`s entire family of Advanced DLT Library Systems, as well as Storage Technology Corp.`s Redwood, Timberline and TimberWolf Automated Cartridge Systems.
"The Fibre Channel-to-SCSI multiplexer is highly strategic to our Fibre Channel offering," said Liz Montgomery, product marketing manager for HP`s Enterprise Storage Solutions Division. "Given that tape libraries aren`t expected to support Fibre Channel attachment for some time, HP`s multiplexer offers customers a great way to make the transition to Fibre Channel without sacrificing their considerable investment in SCSI-based tape systems." HP`s standards-based and complete product portfolio enables IT managers to do the following:
easily scale from gigabytes to terabytes of capacity;
improve performance and capacity concurrently;
add or remove devices without disrupting systems, networks or applications; and
expand their range of system and storage-deployment options.
"We`re really talking about a whole new architectural paradigm," said Lane. "Fibre Channel not only opens interconnect bottlenecks and design limitations of the likes of SCSI, but it allows IT managers to consider new and exciting ways to manage their enterprise storage systems and data to address future as well as current needs."
The new Fibre Channel products are supported by HP`s D-Class, K-Class and T-600 Enterprise Servers and enterprise parallel clusters running HP-UX(1) 10.20 TFC. The products can be ordered in June, and shipments are expected to begin in late summer.
HP is the official information-technology hardware and maintenance supplier to the 1998 World Cup soccer tournament and the 1997 Tournament of France. Selected for its technology and skills to support and manage mission-critical applications, HP will help create an information-management infrastructure for handling game-scoring; media centers; personnel accreditation; hotel information; and various ticketing, stadium, warehouse and back-office operations.
Information about HP and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.hp.com.
Share
Editorial contacts